


Something They Drank

by ATTHS_TWICE



Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Fluff, Movie Night, Post episode s02e20 Humbug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATTHS_TWICE/pseuds/ATTHS_TWICE
Summary: Mulder and Scully have a movie night at Mulder’s place following the episode Humbug. They have a few drinks as they unwind and discuss the underlying current of the movie Mulder has chosen.





	Something They Drank

**Author's Note:**

> Okay!! This was for my FIRST ever prompt on Tumblr. I was asked by the wonderful and amazing @gaycrouton: 
> 
> “Could you write the first time Mulder and Scully ever drank during movie night? I'm just so curious about how that started since we know it's canon XD I'd love to see your take!”
> 
> So here is where my brain went with the idea. Hope you all like it. ❤️ And thanks, as always, to flicked_switch for her magic editing skills.

“Beer is okay, right?” Mulder asked Scully as he stood in front of his near empty fridge. “I don’t actually have anything else, well tap water, but …” He looked at her and shrugged. “Sorry.” 

“No. Beer is fine. I mean, we’re off duty, on our own time, and God knows this case was enough to drive someone to drink. All those circus folk and the ‘Fiji Mermaid’ hanging about. I’m sure I’ll have nightmares about it for weeks,” Scully sighed, leaning against the door jamb into his kitchen. “As if Tooms wasn’t bad enough. Now I’ll be thinking of that twin somehow possibly either ripping from inside The Conundrum’s body or being slowly digested in his stomach. Either scenario is horrifying.”

Mulder stared at her and shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Scully. Thank you for that disturbing visual,” he shuddered, taking two beers from the fridge, opening them, and handing one to her. “Now I’ll be thinking about that and how I was almost impaled on a bed of actual nails. Skewered is not the way I want to go.” He tipped his beer to her, and they clinked their bottles together. 

“So you mentioned a movie on the phone. Which one did you have in mind?” she asked, turning and setting her beer on the table as she shrugged off her coat. Picking up the bottle again, she looked up at him. “Please, no circus, carnival, or overly graphic movies.” 

“Oh, overly graphic, Scully? What kind of movie night did you think this was?” he teased her as he stepped closer to her, raising his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes and walked into the living room, his eyes following her, allowing him to look her up and down while she was not aware of it so he was able to avoid the possibility of a slap. 

She was wearing _jeans_. Dana Scully was wearing dark blue jeans, and a soft, periwinkle, purpley colored sweater that he wanted to rub between his fingers. He imagined that it was just as soft against her flesh as the blanket his grandmother used to have. The one that he loved pressing his face against. He figured Scully would not appreciate his face buried in her soft sweater, but a guy could dream. She slipped off her shoes, and he saw a flash of purple on her toenails before she sat cross-legged on the couch. 

Oh, God … 

Seeing her comfortable like that in his place made him feel a little bolder, and he walked into the room with a bit more swagger than normal. He knew she would not notice a difference, but he felt it and that was what mattered. 

The last few days had actually done it too. In her trailer discussing the case, the way she had been sitting at the table felt very … casual and at ease with how they were with one another. Yes, they were discussing _Jim-Jim the Dog-Faced Boy_ , and it had seemed hooky and silly, but the ease at which they just _were_ , was nice. 

“So,” he said, setting his beer down on the desk. “Nothing overly graphic … let me just check what’s in the VCR. Oh … no that’s … I’ll just save that for later.” He put the _Hot Space Babes_ video over to the side, his cheeks flushed as he knew this particular one featured a red headed scientist who resembled Scully. Resembled her _a lot._

“Just adding it to the other ones that aren’t yours?” she teased as she cleared her throat. He looked back at her and she smiled. God, she was so beautiful. 

“Something like that yeah,” he answered and went back to searching for an acceptable movie to watch with his partner that did not feature big breasted women moaning. 

“Ah! Got it!” he said triumphantly and put the movie in the VCR. He picked up his beer and sat down next to her as he reached for the remote, fast forwarding to the movie. 

“ _The Princess Bride?_ Really?” she asked incredulously. 

“Do you not like this movie?” he asked, looking from her to the screen and back again. 

“No, no, I do. In fact it’s … one of my favorites,” she said quietly, her cheeks slightly flushed. 

“Ahh. Cary Elwes takes another heart I see,” he pouted, and she laughed. He watched her and smiled, enjoying the sound of her happiness. It was few and far between that he got to hear it. 

“Not Cary Elwes, exactly,” she said, taking a drink of her beer and looking at him. “I suppose, it’s more the character and just the general romance of it all.” At his raised eyebrows, she laughed nervously and glanced down at her lap. “Westley was in love with Buttercup for years. He never said it outright, but he showed her, every day. He … he took care of her, took her bossing him about, and always with his ‘ _as you wish.’_ ” She lifted her head and smiled as that part of the movie started. Taking another drink, she remained quiet as she watched. 

He watched her watch the movie, smiling and laughing as she drank her beer until it was down to the last few drops. She seemed surprised to find it empty so quickly, and he stood up, intent on getting her another one, wanting to keep the conversation going. 

“Mulder, I’m fine, I don’t need another one,” she called, her tone holding a hint of embarrassment. 

“Nonsense, I need another myself,” he said, grabbing two, knowing full well his was more than half full. _Can’t let her drink alone,_ he thought as he popped them open. 

Walking back in the room he saw Westley leaving, and he heard Scully sigh as he handed her her beer. He sat down beside her, put his new drink on the desk, and picked up his old one. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, holding the bottle in her hands and sighing again. “See, it’s not that he loves her so deeply, which he does and we can obviously and plainly see it, it’s … it’s that he feels he needs to be worthy of her. He _leaves_ her to prove his worth, to … secure a future for her, for _them_ , and that alone is so romantic.” She took a drink and sighed again. “She didn’t … it wasn’t necessary, at least I don’t think it was, for him to leave to have money for marriage. She lived on the farm there, she wasn’t a noble or fancy woman. What did he need money for?” Mulder shrugged and put his chin on his hand as he looked at her as she explained her thoughts on the movie. She took a long drink and then sighed once more. 

“She loved him so much, Mulder,”she said quietly. “You could hear it in her goodbye, see it in the fact that she mourned his believed death for five years. She was lost without him, but that didn’t mean she was less of who she was, her heart was just missing it’s other half.” She scoffingly laughed, and he raised his eyebrows again. Glancing at him, she shook her head. “Ah, I’ll be quiet now, and we can watch the movie.” 

“Scully, I know this movie by heart, I don’t need to _watch_ it,” he said, catching her eye, she nodded and took another drink of her beer. “I am interested in what you think of it, though. So please, continue.” He smiled and she uncrossed her legs and put her feet on the coffee table. 

Her bare, purple toenails painted, feet. 

They were so small. It always astounded him that someone with such a large presence could be so tiny. Suddenly, some _very_ unpartnerlike thoughts began to swirl around in his brain and he drug his eyes from her feet to avoid them. 

“Can … can you rewind it?” she asked timidly and he grinned. Picking up the remote, he rewound it until she told him to stop, in a spot he would have stopped at anyway even if she had not requested it. He knew, because of course he did, the exact spot she wanted to see again. Westley was leaving and Buttercup was crying as she held him … 

“ _I'm afraid I'll never see you again …”_

“ _Of course you will.”_

_“But what if something happens to you?”_

_“Hear this now, I will always come for you.”_

“ _But how can you be sure?”_

“ _This is true love. You think this happens every day?”_

“That, Mulder. That’s what I love about this movie. People can scoff or roll their eyes, saying it’s sappy romance, but …” she sighed and smiled. “He leaves and then she believes that he dies, but of course he doesn’t. But, when he returns … it’s been five years, and he hears she’s marrying the horrible prince. He can’t believe she would, but does she still love _him_ , Westley? He needs to know if it’s as real a true love as he believed it to be, so he keeps his identity known from her, holds himself back until he knows for absolute certainty.” 

“When she shoves him down the hill, and he’s forced to tell her as he’s basically falling to his death? Her poor sweet Westley …” Mulder said, shaking his head. She laughed and then looked at him seriously. 

“But, Mulder, he needed to be sure,” holding his gaze, she swallowed. “She believed him dead, had mourned and ached for him. Though her heart was broken, she carried on. She had to. If he had returned, walked up to that farm, she would have been overjoyed. But so much time had passed, _he_ wasn’t sure she could still possibly love him the same way. They were … things were different and he … But when he did know, when he was completely sure … that was it. Nothing could tear them apart again, not even the fire swamp.” She smiled softly at him, and he felt like she was someone he had just met. How had he not seen this romantic side to her before? How had he not recognized it in her? 

“He had been _mostly_ dead, Mulder, and still he came for her,” she whispered, staring at him. He held her gaze and judging by the fact that his first drink was still more than half full, he knew it was not the alcohol making him flush. “True love doesn’t come along every day.” She shrugged with a small smile, and he exhaled a breath he was not aware he had been holding. 

“Wow, these must be some new kind of beers that contain truth serum or something,” she laughed nervously, peering into her bottle, and recrossing her feet. He took a long pull from his bottle, needing time to think of what to say. Nothing smartass-y, it needed to be genuine. He wiped his mouth and looked at her. 

“I’ve watched this movie many times, Scully, and never viewed it as eloquently as you just explained. I always thought he should have told her right away and let her know it was him, not lead her on or tease her, but I do understand what you’re saying,” he said quietly. “ _He_ was scared and uncertain, her love hadn’t dulled or changed, nor had his … but a shift had taken place. He just needed to …” 

“Be pushed down a hill?” she asked with a smirk. 

“Sometimes, we men need that,” he laughed, and she nodded. “We need that push to tell us we’re being idiots.” He glanced at the movie again, finding he had lost track of where they were, something that had never happened to him before when he turned on this movie. 

“I think it’s a lot more than sometimes,” she said, and he looked back at her. She took a drink and smiled sideways at him. He smiled back and nodded. 

“Should we start over? Or is from here okay?” She shrugged, and he leaned back, finishing off his first beer and reaching for the other one. Scully got up, and he heard the fridge door opening and closing, then two bottle caps falling on the counter. She walked back in and handed him his next one as she settled down with her last one. 

Her bare feet were on the coffee table again and he found them just as intriguing and enjoyable as the rest of the movie, which took them over three hours to finish. It was paused and rewound, laughed over and then certain parts were watched again. 

After Scully left and he cleaned up the bottles and caps, he made a vow to always have some type of alcohol on hand for future movie nights. He liked hearing from her, and if it took a little liquid courage to loosen her tongue, he wanted it there for her. 

He turned out the lights, laid down on the couch, and thought of her purple painted toenails. Smiling, he turned onto his side, determined to discover what the next color choice would be. Hopefully, he would at the next movie night. 

Maybe next time he should bring some whiskey. Just in case … 


End file.
